Chapter 8
Rykar
Istood at the edge of the excavated hole, looking down at what had to be the most pathetic excuse for a Sola I’d ever seen.
Maya’s gloved hand gripped mine through our space suits, and I could feel her tension even through the layers of protective material.
Around us, the assembled lords, their mates, and a contingent of Destran soldiers watched in grim silence as the massive soil-moving ships finished their work, exposing more of the ancient one that had been sleeping beneath the ground for who knows how long.
The mood was not good. That was putting it mildly.
The Sola spread out below us like a diseased organ.
Her surface was a mottled grayish color that reminded me uncomfortably of rotting flesh.
Where the other Solas in our connected city were vibrant and healthy, with surfaces that shifted through pleasant colors and patterns, this ancient consciousness looked withered and sick.
Her skin appeared shriveled, covered in deep cracks and fissures that spoke of eons spent in dormancy.
Some sections had pulled away from others entirely, creating gaps that showed the darker interior beneath.
“She looks half dead,” Maya said quietly through our comm system, voicing what we were all thinking.
I couldn’t argue with that assessment. If this was what the Sola who had supposedly chosen me looked like, we were a perfect match. It seemed fitting, somehow, that if I was destined to be a lord, it would be to a being that appeared to be beyond saving. A broken lord for a broken Sola.
“The opening is there,” Scaron said, pointing to what looked like a natural seam in the Sola’s surface about twenty meters down from where we stood. “It appeared when the excavation reached full depth.”
I could feel the Sola’s consciousness pressing at the edges of my awareness, a constant background static that had grown stronger as we’d approached the excavation site.
The energy was palpable here, thick enough that it made my skin crawl beneath the space suit.
Every instinct I had was screaming at me to turn around and walk away, to find some other solution that didn’t involve descending into the body of a dying alien ship.
But Maya was running out of time. I could see it in the way she moved, the slight tremor in her hands that had nothing to do with cold or fear.
The connection she’d been maintaining with the ancient Sola was slowly killing her, and our failed experiment had only made things worse.
If I didn’t at least try to establish a proper bond, she would die.
The ancient consciousness would die. And the interference with the other Solas would eventually destabilize the entire connected city.
No pressure at all.
“The ladder system is in place,” one of the soldiers reported. “Secured at multiple anchor points. It should hold your weight easily.”
I nodded, though my throat felt too tight to speak.
Maya squeezed my hand, and I realized we’d been holding onto each other since we’d first arrived at the excavation site.
Her presence was the only thing keeping me grounded, the only thing preventing me from simply walking away from this impossible situation.
“Only you two can enter,” Zurian said quietly, moving to stand beside us. “No one else would be welcome, but your packs have food and supplies if you need to spend more time than expected.” His brow furrowed. “If the bonding fails, if something goes wrong down there…”
“Then Maya dies anyway,” I finished. “And this Sola might take half our city with her. I understand the stakes, Zurian.”
Savair approached from the other side, his expression carefully neutral. “Remember, the goal is to reach the heart chamber and make direct contact with the consciousness core. Once you touch the crystal, the bonding process should begin automatically. You won’t be able to stop it once it starts.”
“What if I can’t find the heart chamber?” I asked. “This Sola doesn’t look like she’s developed properly. What if there isn’t one?”
“There will be,” Ledos said with more confidence than I felt. “Every Sola has a heart chamber, even if it’s rudimentary. Trust your instincts once you’re inside. The bond that’s already forming should guide you to the right place.”
Trust my instincts. Right. The same instincts that had led me to take my siblings on a supply run through contested territory. The same instincts that had failed me spectacularly ten cycles ago.
I looked down at Maya, whose brown eyes were visible through the faceplate of her helmet.
Through the clear material, I could see the trust there, the faith that I would somehow find a way to save both her and the ancient consciousness.
That trust terrified me more than anything else about this situation.
I adjusted the pack on my back. “Ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she replied, though I could hear the nervousness in her voice.
We approached the ladder system the soldiers had rigged, a series of flexible rungs that descended into the excavated pit and attached to anchor points driven deep into the surrounding rock.
The Sola’s surface was about fifteen meters below ground level, close enough that we could immediately make out more details of her condition as we began our descent.
Up close, the damage was even more apparent.
The cracks in her surface were widespread, and there was an unnatural quality to the way light reflected off her skin.
Where healthy Sola surfaces had a subtle iridescence that shifted with their moods and needs, this ancient consciousness looked dull and lifeless.
My boots touched the Sola’s surface with a slight squelch that made my stomach turn.
The material beneath my feet had an unnatural tackiness to it, as if the surface was partially liquefied.
Each step required a slight effort to pull my boots free, and I could hear Maya making small sounds of disgust as she experienced the same thing.
“This is really gross,” she said through the comm, and despite everything, I found myself smiling.
“Not exactly what you pictured when you signed up for a geological survey?”
“Definitely not.” She paused, looking around at the damaged landscape of the ancient Sola’s exposed surface. “But it’s still the discovery of a lifetime. Even if it kills me.”
I wished she hadn’t put it quite that way.
We made our way carefully across the uneven surface, Maya’s hand once again firmly clasped in mine.
I found I couldn’t bear the thought of letting her go, not when we were so close to the moment that would determine both our fates.
I knew she wasn’t my mate in the Destran sense; if she were, the bonding marks would have already appeared on my skin, marking me as a paired lord.
But the connection I felt to her went beyond mere partnership or shared crisis.
Somewhere in the past week, between late-night conversations and moments of desperate cooperation, I had begun to care for Maya Chen in a way that had nothing to do with duty or responsibility.
I was drawn to her intelligence, her courage, her refusal to back down even when facing impossible odds.
The way she looked at me as if I were capable of being more than just a failed transport pilot carrying ten cycles of guilt.
I wished things could have been different between us.
I wished we could have met in that hypothetical cof-fee shop she’d described, where the biggest decision I’d have to make was whether to pretend to enjoy this “bitter” beverage that humans liked.
Where we could have taken our time getting to know each other without the pressure of life-or-death stakes hanging over every conversation.
But wishes didn’t change reality. My priority now was to save her life, to give her the chance to return to Earth and continue the work she loved. To live the life she deserved, even if I couldn’t be part of it.
The seam in the Sola’s surface that Scaron had pointed out became more obvious as we approached it.
It was roughly oval-shaped, about two meters long and a meter wide, with edges that looked almost organic.
As we drew closer, the seam began to widen, the edges pulling apart with a soft sighing sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“She’s opening for us,” Maya said, wonder evident in her voice despite the grotesque nature of what we were witnessing.
The opening revealed a chamber below, dimly lit by the same grayish bioluminescence that characterized the Sola’s exterior. I could see what looked like a soft, uneven floor about three meters down, covered in the same tacky material as the surface.
“I’m going first,” I said, moving toward the opening.
“We go together,” Maya replied firmly. “We’re in this together, remember?”
I wanted to argue, to insist that I take any risks first, but I knew she was right. We were connected now, bound together by the ancient consciousness in ways that neither of us fully understood. Separating at this point might do more harm than good.
I lowered myself through the opening, dangling from the edge for a moment before dropping the remaining distance to the chamber floor.
The surface beneath my feet felt like thick gel, yielding but supportive.
Maya followed a moment later, and I caught her around the waist to help steady her landing.
The seam above us began to close the moment we were both inside, sealing us off from the excavation site and the assembled lords. The soft sighing sound was replaced by a wet, organic noise that reminded me uncomfortably of a mouth closing.
“Well,” Maya said, testing her footing on the strange surface. “No going back now.”
I activated my suit’s comm system to try to reach the surface team. “Scaron, can you hear me? We’re inside the Sola.”
Static greeted my attempt, broken by fragments of voices too distorted to understand.